New SANsymphony-V Turns Surplus Servers Into Virtual Storage Pools

DataCore Software this week unveiled SANsymphony-V, a new version of its flagship data protection software with a new focus on helping customers repurpose redundant servers as virtual storage appliances.

"With virtualization, customers consolidate workloads and get a quick drop in costs," Teixeira said. "But this also leads to single points of failure, leading to potential issues. And, as customers start managing multiple workloads on a single storage infrastructure, performance can get bogged down."

SANsymphony-V allows solution providers to take advantage of surplus servers -- which are no longer needed after using server virtualization software -- by turning them into virtual storage appliances, which can use their internal hard drives as part of a virtual storage pool, Teixeira said.

"This allows customers to use existing equipment without the need to rip and replace in order to keep costs down," he said.

"Resellers can help customers roll in new high-powered hardware to increase storage performance in virtualized environments," Gonzalez said. "But customers can get blindsided with costs they didn't expect. With SANsymphony-V, just tell customers they can repurpose existing equipment to get started. Then, as their infrastructures expand, they can bring in new hardware as needed."

Customers can also take other surplus servers, move them offsite to a branch office or somewhere else, and turn them into a storage pool for use as a disaster recovery solution, Gonzalez said.

For instance, the software allows data to be mirrored across two sites, and provides advanced cache techniques to run workloads in server memory instead of on storage devices to increase application performance, he said.

SANsymphony-V also replicates physical server images so they can be run remotely on virtual servers in case of a disaster, he said.

The software also includes load balancing, thin provisioning, and continuous data protection features.

SANsymphony-V is currently available, and is sold only through indirect sales channels, Teixeira said. Pricing starts at under $10,000, which includes a license for a fully-redundant, two-node environment and annual 24x7 tech support, he said.